Bio­plas­tic is sick. It’s basi­cally star­ch, water, gly­ce­ri­ne and vine­gar sti­red together and hea­ted slo­wly to a pasty bub­bly form that takes a day to strengthen up. Today we coo­ked a few vari­a­ti­ons of the stan­dard reci­pe to make a few sam­ple expe­ri­ments with dif­fe­rent ingre­di­ent ratio, coo­king time and thick­ness, to com­pa­re the pro­per­ti­es and pos­si­bly may­be pro­ba­bly figu­re out some inte­res­ting use for them in futu­re pro­jects. They take about a day to cure, so we have no con­clu­si­ons just yet, but we’re all pretty sick of the smell of vine­gar by now! Stay tuned for the fol­low up, coming to an hac­kers­pa­ce blog near you soon.

Fish are nice. We like fish. Fili­pe brought some with him and seems to be plan­ning some cute trac­king sys­tem ins­tal­la­ti­on. A crack in the main expe­ri­ments tank hold him back a few hours whi­le the sili­co­ne pat­ch dri­ed up, so it isn’t qui­te ope­ra­ti­o­nal just yet, but we’re alre­ady wor­king hard on the next evil step for world domi­na­ti­on: devi­sing a cle­ver way to cen­tra­li­ze and reu­se his lit­tle fishi­es trac­king valu­es. And sha­re them with the world whi­le we’re at it. Who knows who might need a bowl fish trac­king stre­am of valu­es out the­re.

We took a lit­tle walk wan­de­ring about Mon­te­mor-o-Novo, qui­te a pea­ce­ful town as it turns out, we mana­ged to find an open res­tau­rant with some excel­lent tra­di­ti­o­nal Por­tu­gue­se food, whi­ch was nice. Meanwhi­le, back in the new tech world, our plans for tonight’s gene­ric audio mis­chi­ef jam got held back by the lack of a mix table, some lag with nin­jam wire­less and an all­nigh­ter live bro­ad­cast stre­am pum­ping out of Aute­ch­re’s web­si­te.

After many months of plan­ning and plot­ting and con­ju­ring evil dark for­ces with a few selec­ti­ve fri­en­dly con­tacts of the Audi­ên­cia Zero col­lec­ti­ve, the day finally arri­ved whe­re we head out for 1 week resi­dency with mem­bers form all of our three hac­klabs: LCD from Por­to, AltLab form Lis­bon and our very own xDA from Coim­bra.

I mana­ged to setup a ride with a cou­ple of the big bos­ses from LCD, mis­ter Ricar­do Lobo and Pedro Ange­lo. I wai­ted for them the enti­re mor­ning, still sligh­tly reco­ve­ring from Satur­days pho­to exhi­bit ope­ning at Gale­ria Icon (whe­re xDA cola­bo­ra­ted with Sue doing some dj’ing and pro­jec­ti­on map­ping). Pho­ne­call reve­a­led they were alre­ady run­ning late and suf­fe­ring a major set­back, a for­got­ten wal­let, for­cing them to go back to Por­to.

Long story short: The northern comi­ti­ve arri­ved a few hours later than sche­du­led to our des­tiny: Con­ven­to da Sau­da­ção, Mon­te­mor-o-Novo.

Peo­ple from the other labs were alre­ady moving around wor­king on some of their own pro­jects: Móni­ca gre­e­ted us out­si­de whe­re she was tes­ting the wifi access dis­tan­ce for her tree pro­ject. And insi­de we unra­ve­led the AZ room whe­re Gui­lher­me was bot­ching latest robo­tic cre­a­tu­re and Cata­ri­na gre­e­ted us with a handsha­ke using her latest spe­ed­pro­ject, a glo­ve with a led that lights when you sha­ke hands. Fili­pe was set­ting up his fish trac­king sys­tem in a cor­ner. Mau­ri­cio, Sér­gio and Tara were also around doing their own thing and others are sche­du­led to show up through the rest of the week.

Quick tour of the loca­ti­on reve­a­led it to be pretty cool. A reha­bi­li­ta­ted con­vent insi­de a typi­cal Por­tu­gue­se cas­tle with an over­vi­ew of the enti­re city. Plans for sight­se­eing abit aren’t enti­rely out of the ques­ti­on but we are mos­tly all really eager to get down and dirty with the tech­no­logy.

Sit­ting down we finally start to assi­mi­la­te all the poten­ti­al: We have a Maker­bot table for 3d prin­ting. A microwa­ve oven, some star­ch, vine­gar and gly­ce­ri­ne to do some secret bio stuff (not bre­ak­fast pan­ca­kes). Tool­bo­xes, com­po­nents and PCBs for elec­tro­nics fun and non pro­fit. Plenty of pro­ject ide­as invol­ving data visu­a­li­za­ti­on, and fabric inter­fa­ces. And a very evil plan for col­la­bo­ra­ti­ve sound synthe­sis that will hope­fully invol­ve the PA, some con­tact mics, ran­dom MIDI/OSC valu­es from the run­ning pro­jects and plenty of lap­tops.

We can alre­ady pre­sent the first pro­ject, the Whi­te LED Red Glo­ve quick pro­ject by Cata­ri­na and Isa­bel. Whi­ch it’ll be easi­er to des­cri­be by quo­ting her own des­crip­ti­on.

This mit­ten lights up when its wea­rer sha­kes hands with some­o­ne. It has two expo­sed soft con­tacts around the thumb and across the palm whi­ch, when brid­ged by bare skin, turn on the LED embed­ded on the flower. The mit­ten itself was cre­a­ted by fashi­on desig­ner Isa­bel Tomás, and we then sewed a tou­ch swit­ch cir­cuit onto it using con­duc­ti­ve fabric and thre­ad. Isa­bel and I desig­ned this as a soft cir­cuits exer­ci­se for some upco­ming mate­ri­als workshops, and we’ll post some ins­truc­ti­ons soon.

This Sun­day we’re hol­ding our first Soft Cir­cuits Open Lab at the Scho­ol of Fine Arts in Lis­bon (FBAUL — Facul­da­de de Belas Artes de Lis­boa). The­re is no pre­de­fi­ned struc­tu­re for the event. We will meet for the cour­se of one day with the pur­po­ses of sha­ring kno­wled­ge, expe­ri­men­ting fre­ely, advan­cing on-going pro­jects, and just having fun wor­king together. Some of the peo­ple atten­ding will be spe­ci­a­lists in elec­tro­nics and others in tex­ti­les. Bar­camp sty­le impromp­tu pre­sen­ta­ti­ons are very wel­co­me.

Altlab will pro­vi­de some basic tools such as pli­ers, scis­sors, sol­de­ring irons, iro­ning board, etc. But par­ti­ci­pants must bring all the mate­ri­als and addi­ti­o­nal equip­ment neces­sary for their own projects/experiments (inclu­ding lap­tops). Here are some sug­ges­ti­ons: any kind of fabric, nee­dles and thre­ad, yarn, t-shirts, con­duc­ti­ve and/or resis­ti­ve fabric, con­duc­ti­ve thre­ad, con­duc­ti­ve and/or resis­ti­ve yarn, knit­ting and/or cro­chet nee­dles, LEDs, coin cell bat­te­ri­es, bat­tery hol­ders, EL wire, strands of fiber optics, cop­per foil, cop­per adhe­si­ve track, alu­mi­num foil, resis­ti­ve foam, regu­lar foam, ardui­nos (lily­pad or any other kind). If you’ve never wor­ked with any of the­se mate­ri­als and don’t have them handy, come anyway, you can help some­o­ne else with their pro­ject and learn along the way.

This open lab will take pla­ce on Febru­ary 21st, from 10:30 to 18:30, at the Scho­ol of Fine Arts in Lis­bon, room 307, 1st flo­or (sin­ce our own spa­ce is still under cons­truc­ti­on). All are wel­co­me, the­re is no fee nor regis­tra­ti­on, but ple­a­se do let me know if you are plan­ning on coming: catarinamota(at)audienciazero.org

Audi­ên­cia Zero will hold a mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary artist resi­dency with its three labo­ra­to­ri­es (altlab, LCD, xDA) in O Espa­ço do Tem­po (Mon­te­mor-o-Novo) in the peri­od betwe­en 01 and 07 Mar­ch and 14 and 23 June. The pro­jects pro­du­ced will be shown betwe­en 12 and 25 July. The resi­den­ce is pri­ma­rily inten­ded for the cur­rent mem­bers of this labo­ra­to­ri­es, but par­ti­ci­pa­ti­on of exter­nal ele­ments is accep­ted whe­re pro­po­sals are con­sis­tent and inte­res­ting. More infor­ma­ti­on and regis­tra­ti­on at the end of this page …

Tho­se inte­res­ted in resi­den­ce should express their inte­rest and enroll as soon as pos­si­ble (end of page) to secu­re a pla­ce. The orga­ni­za­ti­on will con­tact you to fol­low up the appli­ca­ti­on.

When asked by the orga­ni­za­ti­on par­ti­ci­pants must indi­ca­te whether they have a pro­ject in mind to deve­lop or an acti­vity to pro­po­se. The cle­a­rer the pro­jects and acti­vi­ti­es, as well as the roles played by each ele­ment of a team, the gre­a­ter the like­liho­od of the acti­vity or pro­ject to be inte­gra­ted into the resi­den­ce.

Vacan­ci­es in the resi­den­ce are limi­ted to 15, with the right accom­mo­da­ti­on and a daily meal. If the­re are more than 15 par­ti­ci­pants, the orga­ni­za­ti­on we’ll have to cho­o­se the most inte­res­ting pro­jects addres­sing the fol­lowing selec­ti­on cri­te­ria: cre­a­ti­vity, tech­no­lo­gi­es invol­ved, fea­si­bi­lity and time.

After the regis­tra­ti­on peri­od, appli­ca­ti­ons will be asses­sed by the orga­ni­zers and esta­blished resi­dent artists. We will begin the dis­cus­si­on of pro­jects / acti­vi­ti­es and defi­ne the resi­dency the­me.

May­be you’ve noti­ced that we haven’t upda­ted our blog much in the­se last weeks !

But don’t wor­ry, we’re still around and ready to rock.

The­re is actu­ally a major rea­son for this tem­po­rary bre­ak on news, we just moved to a new and gre­at spa­ce (check here some pic­tu­res). It is just an ama­zing pla­ce to run a hac­kers­pa­ce like ours!

This is just a small video showing all the work we are doing to get the new spa­ce ready.

We hope to have it all ready in the begin­ning of the next month, so stay tuned! 😉